


take care when you fall

by perennials



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, SOME TENDER AS FUCK FEELINGS, chapter 318
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 06:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15989186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: Kuroo Tetsurou is so very, very shy.





	take care when you fall

i.

There are many unexpected things in Kenma’s world. The release date of that game he’s been looking forward to for a month gets pushed back for another three. His mother makes him egg rolls to go with his lunch bento, even though he knows she finds the process tedious. The boy next door, with the black hair that defies gravity, is terrified of defying the potted plant in the doorway of Kenma’s house the first time they meet, and tries to hide his face in his father’s pant leg.

 

Kuroo Tetsurou is so very, very shy. Even more so than Kenma, which is an accomplishment in itself. Kenma knows he is the sort of kid that no one wants to sit with during lunch break. That is why he eats his egg rolls in silence at his desk, his PSP a reassuring weight in the pocket of his sweater. Kenma knows himself; he has never been one for the whole troublesome matter of small talk, and yet right now Kuroo seems even less willing to start a conversation than him. It is admirable.

 

It is also hard to deal with, because Kenma has plans to go back and reconquer all the three kingdoms in an old game, since the new release from earlier is now a newly-delayed release. Kuroo is standing beside him near his bedroom door, hands stiffly clasped together. His face is pale. His eyes are on the floor.

 

Meanwhile, Kenma’s eyes are on him. He’s not sure what kind of expression he should be wearing now, so he just kind of stares until he feels a little bad about the small bead of sweat that’s formed between Kuroo’s eyebrows. Then he shuffles towards his bed, breaking out of the strange orbit the two of them have been compelled into by their own silence, and sits down.

 

“I have games,” Kenma tells him. Quietly, a little nervously. He does not know how to deal with someone more skittish than himself.

 

Kuroo’s eyes don’t light up, and his awkward half-slouch doesn’t disappear, and he doesn’t grin the way Kenma can’t help but feel like boys with gravity-defying hair should. But he does stop scrutinizing the floor, which Kenma keeps clean in spite of his atrocious habits in every other area of life, and is quite proud of. He meets Kenma’s gaze for what he realizes is the first time, ever.

 

Kuroo’s eyes are gold, like buried treasure, like luck. Kenma thinks they’re sort of pretty, and doesn’t say anything.

  


ii.

In third grade science they learned that all living things need air, food, and water to survive. Kenma was secretly jealous of plants, because they can photosynthesize and therefore do not have to put in as much effort to stay alive. He was so jealous, he wrote an essay about how he wanted to be a plant when he grew up. All the adults laughed and patted his head, and his classmates laughed and subtly shifted away from him, their chairs screeching like claws on a chalkboard. They thought he was weird. He thought it was weird how they tried so hard in everything.

 

Kenma the living thing needs air, food, and water, and maybe a solid box full of games, if he’s being completely honest with himself. But the list ends there. He’s satisfied with this much: his bed is warm and comfy, and the space inside his head is quiet. He’s satisfied with this.

  


iii.

Life, if you ask him, is about spending as little energy as possible throughout the day without falling asleep, and then falling asleep after you’re done doing all the things you’re supposed to do anyway, because moving around is tiring. These include things like homework, and chores, and building obligatory friendships with boys who live next door because his parents think it’d be good for him. Kenma is not particularly fond of any of them.

 

At the very least, he thinks, there is only one boy next door. But then this boy turns into Kuroo, and somewhere between the seventh time Kenma beats him at his favorite game (he knows, he’s been keeping count) and the day he turns up with a huge, battered-looking volleyball tucked under his arm, Kuroo turns into Kuro.

 

As in: “I’m not even good at volleyball, Kuro, why don’t you find someone else to play with.” Kenma ducks his head against the mid-afternoon glare.

 

The grass-covered slopes beside the river canal are sprinkled with sunlight. Both of them are sweating a little in the fine, grainy heat of summer, the fabric of Kuro’s shirt starting to stick to his back, only to spring free every time he tries to high-five the clouds and gets a volleyball to the face instead. Occasionally, a car ambles by with glossy, sun-bright windows, and the purr of the engine makes Kenma’s head turn.

 

Kuro, who has stopped wringing his hands together in favor of swinging them all over the place to accentuate his near constant stream of commentary on volleyball, the bento lunch his father made him, and volleyball, replies with indignance: “You are!”

 

The emotion behind his words is genuine, and this, too, Kenma knows. Kuro has gotten better at being less afraid. Both of them have. Without realizing it, Kuroo turned into Kuro, the days turned into weeks, and video games turned into two-person volleyball rallies that were only functional rallies sometimes. Without his realizing it, Kuro began to drag him everywhere before he could even open his mouth to protest, and he began to let it happen.

 

Kenma lets it happen. Kuro is a little older than him, and therefore knows a little bit more about the comings and goings of the universe. Life, if you ask him (Kenma did ask, for no reason other than that he had been curious about what goes on underneath all that hair), is about hitting strong spikes. That, and getting soda-flavored popsicles in summer, and playing volleyball with Kenma.

 

Secretly, very secretly, Kenma is flattered.

  


iv.

This is how it goes— Kenma tosses to him, and Kuro jumps.

 

In that moment, he finally understands, vehemently, why people in video games would burn down entire kingdoms for each other.

  


v.

There are many unexpected things in Kenma’s world. The video game he’s been looking forward to ends up in his hands (it’s a gift, Kuro says, and Kenma isn’t sure of how to express his gratitude, but he tries very hard), so he doesn’t end up having to brave the cold outside to reach the store after all. His mother teaches Kuro’s father how to make egg rolls the way she does, with more sugar than salt in them so they’re softer, sweeter. The boy with the black hair that defies gravity stops flinching at potted plants and decides that he wants to defy the heavens, or something. He decides that he wants Kenma to do it with him.

 

They grow up. Elementary school becomes middle school becomes high school, with its love letter handshakes and the helium balloons and all those shiny things you hear about in stories. Kuro becomes brighter and bolder and bigger than life, like a really loud pop song playing over the speakers that hurts your ears but is unfairly catchy all the same. And yet, some things don't change. He still steals Kenma’s egg rolls when he’s not looking. He still wrings his hands together when he’s nervous, although Kenma is the only one that pays enough attention to the details to notice these days. He still swings his arms all over the place like he’s trying to draw a mural in the sky.

 

They grow up together. Sometimes Kenma doesn’t feel like playing volleyball, so he lies on his bed, which is warm and comfy, and Kuro sprawls out on his stomach next to him and does his homework (usually math, because that is what he always leaves to the end), sneaking the occasional glance over. When Kenma gets tired of that, too, he sits up. Kuro looks at him languidly, the buried treasure gold of his eyes hidden beneath droopy eyelids. He lets his math textbook fall shut.

 

Kenma makes a sound which means _I’m bored._ Kuro gets it, although he really shouldn’t, because it doesn’t sound very much different from any of the other sounds he makes. It’s just how he is; brash and boyish and dangerously observant, dangerously sharp. It's just how they are: each a little transparent in the eyes of the other, like sunlight at the bottom of the swimming pool.

 

He rolls over to the edge of his bed, fumbling around on his table blindly with one hand, but then Kuro rolls into _him,_ his weird hair that is actually really soft (Kenma knows this, he has touched it before) tickling Kenma’s back. He squirms in protest.

 

“Let’s go outside.”

 

Kenma turns and frowns at him, eyebrows pinched together. “But why.”

 

At this, Kuro grins, the way Kenma has secretly always thought that beautiful boys with gravity-defying hair should. Kuro grins, and it makes him look like the sun, sweet and summery and limned in thick swathes of gold. Kenma relaxes. He thinks about how lucky he is, and then reaches out and touches the corner of Kuro’s smile, the curve of his jaw.

 

Kuro’s eyes go soft, his voice mellowing out to a low, pleasant drawl.

 

“Because,” he says, “I have a volleyball.”

  


vi.

This is how it goes— Kenma tosses to him, and Kuro jumps, and in that moment, he falls in love. He falls in love.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs) or [tumblr](http://corpsentry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> FUCK MY WHOLE ASS i was supposed to be studying in between classes today but then someone was like 'elmo have u seen 318' and i was like 'no' and they were like 'ok so' and so i had to read it and now these kids are going to haunt me for the next 3 centuries. thank you furudate. thank you a lot  
> thanks for reading this thing i shat out in between history and philosophy today and then edited on the train to japanese LOL i'm dead tired cos it's friday so if anything's off or weird or lame as all hell. i'm not thinking straight. i'm not thinking. i hope you understand. nonetheless all kudos comments bookmarks and punches to the face bc SHY KID KUROO WITH HIS DAD I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS are deeply appreciated
> 
> have a good one


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